Elon Musk’s Roadster Won’t Return to Earth Anytime Soon

In a bid to make the Falcon Heavy Tesla launch more special, the CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk finally put its massive Falcon Heavy into space on February 6, 2018, the company’s most powerful rocket yet. What made the SpaceX Tesla Roadster launch more interesting is that the cargos selected for the flight included Elon’s red Tesla Roadster sports car with a space-suited mannequin driver. Other cargos included a dummy driver, a copy of Issac Asimov’s science fiction book series, and a built-in camera to capture all images it comes across. Notably, the Falcon Heavy Tesla Roadster is engraved with 6000 SpaceX employees’ names.

Initially envisioned to chase the Mars around the sun, the Falcon Heavy Tesla Roadster delivered better performance than expected and became the first car in the space that hit several key milestones. The SpaceX Falcon Heavy is believed to stay in the space for millions of years, which makes the Elon Musk’s SpaceX Mars mission unusual and immortal.

According to the SpaceX mission team, there are quite little chances of the Tesla Roadster crashing with the Sun and nearly no possibility to collide with Mars. The team’s workstations suggested that the Falcon has 6% risk of hitting the Sun and almost 2.5% chance of smashing Venus in next tens of millions of years.

“We did not know what to expect because the other near-Earth objects we see in space are asteroids and typically come from further out in the Solar System. In this case, it’s the reverse. We know the object comes from Earth, so the question is where will it go from here,” says Dr. Rein, the assistant professor of the University of Toronto.

The founder of the Space Exploration Technologies Corp, SpaceX, Elon Musk, in an interview stated that most of the rockets boarding on test flights contain mass simulators such as steel blocks or concrete, which bores him. Thus, the company decided to send something usual that makes them feel proud on.

The ultimate objective of the Falcon SpaceX launch is to test the space-faring capabilities and ability to transmit cargo into orbit around Mars. With the ability to lift over 64 metric tons into the orbit equivalent to jetliner loaded with fuel, luggage, crew, and passenger, Falcon Heavy is believed to be the most powerful operational rocket in the world, at present. The Falcon Heavy has the capacity to lift more than twice the payload that can be freighted by the next closest operational vehicle, the Delta IV heavy, that too, at one-third of the cost.

Notably, a passionate space science enthusiast and a SpaceX fan, Ben Pearson has created a website called www.whereisroadster.com to track the journey of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy and its dummy driver ‘Starman’ using NASA’s Pasadena-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Horizons ephemeris service. The website shows the real-time data of Roadster’s current position, speed and if the car is heading towards or away from the Mars and Earth.